Don’t forget: Turn on the light
Hey! Reminder that tonight is the deadline for this week’s creativity contest. The prompt is “light.” So let it shine, ladies… 🙂
Archive for
Mar 3
Mar 3
Sounding Board: Housework
It’s the great equalizer: Time. Each one of us receives a new allotment of 24 hours every time the clock strikes midnight. And most of us feel like that allotment is never enough. It often seems like there aren’t sufficient hours in the day to do all the things screaming for your attention, never mind working on your creative projects or taking care of your own well-being.
While we can’t beg, borrow, or steal more time, there are things we can do to “save” time. One key area where you may be able to scrounge up a few more precious moments is on the domestic front.
How do you divvy up your household tasks? Are you able to delegate effectively to your spouse and/or kids? Do you feel like you do more than your fair share — and that housework cuts into your creative opportunities? Do you use positive or negative reinforcement to encourage your kids to pitch in? Do you tie chores to allowance? Have you ever used a chore chart? Is it all a regular routine, or a free-for-all? Are you the kind of person who thinks it’s just easier to do it all yourself? Do you subscribe to the idea that chores are important self-esteem builders for kids, and that even a three-year-old can help unload the dishwasher and put toys away? Do household chores cause strife between you and your kids or spouse?
Cathy Coley and I had an interesting conversation on this topic last week. There are certainly some common male/female dynamics at play in both of our houses. Tell us how things work — or don’t work — at your house. What would you like to improve? What successful strategies do you want to share? Let’s use our collective wisdom to gather up a bonus hour or two.
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Mar 2
Cathy: Start by doing what is necessary
“Start by doing what is necessary, then what is possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible.” — St. Francis of Assisi
This quote is an oldie but a goodie. It’s embroidered on pillows and you can purchase froufrou-looking magnets of it in gift stores. I first hung it over my desk at home, on my refrigerator and over my desk at a job I had as a class assistant for a fifth through sixth grade class. At the time I was working three part-time jobs around my boys’ schedules as I was going through a divorce. Okay, stop right there, I’m not looking for sympathy or anything, I am merely recounting the circumstances that first inspired me to hang this quote everywhere I would most likely see it, and be able to take a moment to breathe. A couple of students even mentioned it helped them to see it, too.
Anyway, at that time, I felt like I was just pointing my bull’s horns forward and ploughing through life, surviving from waking to sleeping. St. Frankie here gave me hope that this too, shall not only pass, but I would be the better for having gotten through it. I was doing what was necessary for that time, so that I could make for a better possibility and maybe even reach for my dreams in the near future.
Well, it was during that chaotic time that I started the manuscript I’ve been moaning about lately. A lot in my life has changed since then, virtually all of it. I have remarried. I have relocated by a significant distance. I have another child, just to name the biggest and most obvious. It’s a new desk, but the quote still hangs, highly visible at the top of my list of inspirational quotes on the wall where I write.
Well guess what! I am taking this quote and rethinking where I am with the manuscript. I’m no longer at the beginning. I am very nearly finished. I have never finished a novel, a lifetime dream I was beginning to think was impossible. It’s not. I am doing it. I am doing it now, through mobile, teething, napless baby needs, a little at a time.
Studio Mothers: Life & Art 